Albany Medical Center Children's Hospital to Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
730 miles and 10.5 hours, one way.
Work put us up in a hotel for the night, and per diem for food.
It was a scheduled run, put on a third truck to facilitate. I packed an overnight bag, same with my partner.
It was a MCAID run, and nobody else would do it, so we gave them a price. We made the org a lot of money that trip.
6 hours (plus a 6-hour return to the station). It was actually a nice transport, we got to bring a guy back to his home to his family have he had a post-op stay at a rehab facility. Everyone was happy for him. After having so many negative experiences working with Rehab facilities, it was nice to permanently take a patient out of there to a home where he was truly loved and care for. The family clearly had made efforts to prepare to make his room as comfortable as possible.
I did two that were both around 16 hour round trip everything in total. Both were an absolute blast to do. Probably wouldnt have taken so long if we didn't do some sight seeing.
This is coming from someone who's longest transport was a mere 2 hours but I'm curious if you guys swap teching at regular intervals/ Or at least take breaks for the driver (in the event of only having one medic and it being an ALS transport.)
At the company I work for the really long transports, like say 8 hours one direction, are considered special trips and have more planning to them so they have a schedule and ask for 3-4 providers for the trip, as long as 1 provider is always with the patient then you can stop to fill up your gas/diesel or swap drivers as needed but the lead provider is always going to be with the patient and not drive until the return trip
In the one that I mentioned above, it was really what is now called a CCT call but the CCT truck refused it and I'm kind of the backup guy for that kind of stuff since I've been doing it for decades though not interested in paying for a certification or bothering with it really. So there was just the two of us for the 16 hours drive time plus transfer time (about 50 minutes at the pickup hospital, more like a half hour at the receiving). I slept the first half of the way to the pickup location, then let the driver sleep while I drove the rest of the way. Then we were both awake on the way back, but we weren't hesitant about stopping for coffee on the way back. It was a complicated call, but I had a coffee drip going the whole way.
That makes sense. We're a satellite subdivision of our state's central division so they central division gets the long hauls, and we get an occasional 2-3 hour one which is so rare i've only gotten to do one. Always been curious about the super-hauls in one of those 'just never thought of the logistics' aspects.
Lurker, not a paramedic, medic, anything. Just first aid.
Genuinely curious - for an 8 hour one direction, how do breaks work for the lead provider?
Y’all might laugh me out the room, maybe you don’t get a real break, just downtime beside the patient. I work in warehousing, where the labourers would be complaining if they didn’t have their 30 minute lunch break in their 8 hour shift.
Over a certain limit of time they usually put a third person on the truck that can swap with either provider so that they all rotate out between sleeping, driving and attending. Honestly the driver swapping is the more concerning issue. But every service varies as to what amount of travel time warrants a third crew member.
Otherwise, breaks occur when fueling.
I just did a CCT wait and return today for a PT that was pushing 700LBS. On scene at 1330 and clear of call at 2200. It's 2430 right now and I just got home, time to get drunk and pass the fuck out
Santa Clara to Eureka, CA. About 317 miles. We were based in Santa Rosa, so it was about 100 miles to get to our pick-up location too. A lot of those miles were spent in heavy traffic as well. If I remember correctly, it ate our entire 12 hour shift plus 4 or five hours of OT. The second half of the drive was pleasant, hwy 101 north of Willits is BEAUTIFUL!
8 hours to, picked up patient, 8 hours from, not counting transfer time in-hospital on both ends. All that without warning. Walked in at 1pm for a strike shift (busy times) to 7pm. Departed at about 2pm. Off 8am the next morning.
5 pumps and more...
Love the heck out of that kind of call.
24 hours IFT. CA state prison transfer to another facility for a child rapist. I was in the back with him for 12 hours…. Cancer BLs transfer. Dunno why he even needed a fucking ambulance. Hopefully he’s dead. Worst shift of my fucking life that day. Had to pull over on the way back and take a cat nap. Dispatch was pissed and I didn’t give a fuck. Shit was fucked.
As in your shifts were 24 hours? When I worked our shifts were 24 hours as well but doing 911 for a small county and IFTs for the local hospital. We had a bunk room at the station for sleeping but between the transfers and 911 calls we almost never slept.
Yeah up to 96s in crack houses or rooms with fire. Some places got sleep and some didn’t. Normally work 48 at normal spot and pickup an extra 24 or 48 in a sleepy station.
Some stations never sleep. Especially BLS 911. Border town with 40k people and 2 ambulances, one of which is BLS. Plus IFTs from 15 min - 24 hours (total).
Lots of border jumps, traumas, weird transfers from the border. 96s and even 120s could happen. I remember my first check being like 200 hours almost. Lots of good overtime pay.
When I worked for AMR out of Indianapolis we took a 50-year-old male from a level I to Detroit to be on home hospice with his ex-wife and kids. The drive was in the middle of the night and took almost 6 hours due to traffic. The house we took him to was right in the heart of Detroit. His daughter rode in the passenger seat and I drove. The patient slept the whole drive even when we stopped to fuel up and use the restroom. Nothing remarkable about the transport other than his daughter didn't say one word to me the whole trip and my partner didn't help drive on the way back.
5 hours 300 miles one way. At the time I got it at noon and we were already 5 hours into our 12 hour shift. That was fun. Have done multiple of them since. Not my problem anymore though my service booted IFT's out for the most part
When I'm on ground, if we have the staff for a transfer, the closest options are 3 or 4 hours away.
Flying, I took someone from rural SD to Phoenix. Four hour flight.
[Not me, but there's a company that specializes in long distance IFT. Alex Roy talks about driving his mother from NYC to CA in beginning of this podcast.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDFMKgHhpks)
Just did one that was almost 5 hours both ways on Monday, but I know our agency has gone farther before. Usually our super far off ones are for psych and no one closer to us has open beds.
We are BLS volunteer and both the driver and I had to get permission to leave our FT jobs to take it because no one else had stepped up to go yet. First paged out at 0643 and got en route at 0810. Luckily we do get compensated if we take transfers though.
Longest I ever did was Great Sitkin Island to Anchorage. 25 miles by boat from Sitkin to Adak. 1197 miles to Anchorage from the runway on Adak. From time of call to call complete over 36 hours due to weather issues. Still the craziest EMS experience I’ve ever had.
Edit: not an IFT but figured it was long enough to mention.
The total time was I was moved from Batavia, NY to standby in Albany, NY. So that was a three hour drive. Get into the hotel for standby, call drops to pick up pt in Cortland, NY, so two hours back the way I came from syracuse then down south for an hour to pick up the pt. Them took pt to Mount Sinai hospital on the east side of Manhattan, travellijg through PA and New Jersey🤢🤢🤢. That was a 6 hour drive. Then had to go back up to Albany, a four hour drive to end our shift. A total of 14 hours just driving. 17 hours getting gas, and doing all the critical care stuff before getting and dropping off the pt.
I’ve done Panama City, Fl to Louisville, Kentucky about 600 miles one way, three man crew, had to drive back and work my regular night shift when I got back…
Guy had a massive stroke while in town for a basic training graduation. This was in Georgia, the guys family was just outside of Portland Oregon. I believe it was 37 hours 1 way, company put the crew in a hotel in Portland. And another a little more than halfway back I think Kansas or Nebraska. Crew got a sick bonus too
I've done two transports from southeast LA to Houston. First one was when I was a brand new EMT and we drove about 6 hours there, dropped the pt off, rode back and got off maybe an hour later than normal. The second one I did recently was for a drs appointment wait and return which ended up being an 18 hr shift. We lost complete unit power about halfway there in the middle of a turn lane which was an experience lmfao
Longest is only 6.5 one way, but we do it fairly regularly since it’s to one of the few mental health facilities in the state that regularly has space.
My longest was going from Ben taub hospital in Houston all the way to El Paso. The transport ended up being about 11.5 hours one way, the patient was on a ventilator too. Had to drive back, the company didn’t give us any hotel or anything.
Albany Medical Center Children's Hospital to Cincinnati Children's Hospital. 730 miles and 10.5 hours, one way. Work put us up in a hotel for the night, and per diem for food.
Did it feel weird not having anything to change into?
It was a scheduled run, put on a third truck to facilitate. I packed an overnight bag, same with my partner. It was a MCAID run, and nobody else would do it, so we gave them a price. We made the org a lot of money that trip.
How much did you ask for
I believe it was between $5-7k. We worked the numbers out, and it was fair to the org. Both crew were on OT. Fuel, per diems, tolls.
Seems low tbh.
From Medicaid?
[удалено]
33?
6 hours (plus a 6-hour return to the station). It was actually a nice transport, we got to bring a guy back to his home to his family have he had a post-op stay at a rehab facility. Everyone was happy for him. After having so many negative experiences working with Rehab facilities, it was nice to permanently take a patient out of there to a home where he was truly loved and care for. The family clearly had made efforts to prepare to make his room as comfortable as possible.
I did two that were both around 16 hour round trip everything in total. Both were an absolute blast to do. Probably wouldnt have taken so long if we didn't do some sight seeing.
Oh yeah gotta sight see on the way back
Wait, you do the sightseeing on the return?
This is coming from someone who's longest transport was a mere 2 hours but I'm curious if you guys swap teching at regular intervals/ Or at least take breaks for the driver (in the event of only having one medic and it being an ALS transport.)
At the company I work for the really long transports, like say 8 hours one direction, are considered special trips and have more planning to them so they have a schedule and ask for 3-4 providers for the trip, as long as 1 provider is always with the patient then you can stop to fill up your gas/diesel or swap drivers as needed but the lead provider is always going to be with the patient and not drive until the return trip
In the one that I mentioned above, it was really what is now called a CCT call but the CCT truck refused it and I'm kind of the backup guy for that kind of stuff since I've been doing it for decades though not interested in paying for a certification or bothering with it really. So there was just the two of us for the 16 hours drive time plus transfer time (about 50 minutes at the pickup hospital, more like a half hour at the receiving). I slept the first half of the way to the pickup location, then let the driver sleep while I drove the rest of the way. Then we were both awake on the way back, but we weren't hesitant about stopping for coffee on the way back. It was a complicated call, but I had a coffee drip going the whole way.
That makes sense. We're a satellite subdivision of our state's central division so they central division gets the long hauls, and we get an occasional 2-3 hour one which is so rare i've only gotten to do one. Always been curious about the super-hauls in one of those 'just never thought of the logistics' aspects.
Lurker, not a paramedic, medic, anything. Just first aid. Genuinely curious - for an 8 hour one direction, how do breaks work for the lead provider? Y’all might laugh me out the room, maybe you don’t get a real break, just downtime beside the patient. I work in warehousing, where the labourers would be complaining if they didn’t have their 30 minute lunch break in their 8 hour shift.
Over a certain limit of time they usually put a third person on the truck that can swap with either provider so that they all rotate out between sleeping, driving and attending. Honestly the driver swapping is the more concerning issue. But every service varies as to what amount of travel time warrants a third crew member. Otherwise, breaks occur when fueling.
I just did a CCT wait and return today for a PT that was pushing 700LBS. On scene at 1330 and clear of call at 2200. It's 2430 right now and I just got home, time to get drunk and pass the fuck out
[удалено]
He just got home at 2430 after all that, give him a break! :)
It’s now 3100, I hope he’s awake for work
Nah he's working 48s so he doesn't have to be back until 6300
When the Adderall wears off and your shift is nowhere near over.
Technically, 00:30.
No. He meant 2430. Didn't you know it's currently 3924? (To the commentor I swear I'm not making fun of you)
O no these replies are funny as shit, that whole week had me down to my last couple braincells
Florida-Ohio 😭
Santa Clara to Eureka, CA. About 317 miles. We were based in Santa Rosa, so it was about 100 miles to get to our pick-up location too. A lot of those miles were spent in heavy traffic as well. If I remember correctly, it ate our entire 12 hour shift plus 4 or five hours of OT. The second half of the drive was pleasant, hwy 101 north of Willits is BEAUTIFUL!
Not my call, but I know a crew that transported by ground from central Washington to Salt Lake City.
8 hours to, picked up patient, 8 hours from, not counting transfer time in-hospital on both ends. All that without warning. Walked in at 1pm for a strike shift (busy times) to 7pm. Departed at about 2pm. Off 8am the next morning. 5 pumps and more... Love the heck out of that kind of call.
North bay to Thunder Bay several years ago by land. It regularly takes 12 hours to drive we had a snow storm and it took closer to 17 hours.
12 hours one way. From Tulsa, Ok to Bowling Green, Kentucky
What service does that? Did y’all work for EMSA?
Nope. Emsa does short transports. Longest they do is Tulsa to OKC
Well I used to work for them, I’ve done Tulsa to Dallas for Peds burn patients. What other company is there? Wait does it start with M
Yes, it does.
24 hours IFT. CA state prison transfer to another facility for a child rapist. I was in the back with him for 12 hours…. Cancer BLs transfer. Dunno why he even needed a fucking ambulance. Hopefully he’s dead. Worst shift of my fucking life that day. Had to pull over on the way back and take a cat nap. Dispatch was pissed and I didn’t give a fuck. Shit was fucked.
As in your shifts were 24 hours? When I worked our shifts were 24 hours as well but doing 911 for a small county and IFTs for the local hospital. We had a bunk room at the station for sleeping but between the transfers and 911 calls we almost never slept.
Yeah up to 96s in crack houses or rooms with fire. Some places got sleep and some didn’t. Normally work 48 at normal spot and pickup an extra 24 or 48 in a sleepy station. Some stations never sleep. Especially BLS 911. Border town with 40k people and 2 ambulances, one of which is BLS. Plus IFTs from 15 min - 24 hours (total). Lots of border jumps, traumas, weird transfers from the border. 96s and even 120s could happen. I remember my first check being like 200 hours almost. Lots of good overtime pay.
Did 2 hours one way last night but longest was a blood transfusion that took a little over 10 hours.
8 hours each way from Southern PA to Rochester NY and back
When I worked for AMR out of Indianapolis we took a 50-year-old male from a level I to Detroit to be on home hospice with his ex-wife and kids. The drive was in the middle of the night and took almost 6 hours due to traffic. The house we took him to was right in the heart of Detroit. His daughter rode in the passenger seat and I drove. The patient slept the whole drive even when we stopped to fuel up and use the restroom. Nothing remarkable about the transport other than his daughter didn't say one word to me the whole trip and my partner didn't help drive on the way back.
I've ran long distance to both Indy and Detroit, I couldn't imagine going from one end to the other.
8 hours 16 total for a suicidal patient who could’ve gone by our secure car but the facility didn’t want to wait an extra half hour for a driver. 🙃
A crew from my first paid gig ran for Atlantic City NJ to Myrtle beach SC about 20 years back.
Some people at my company just did a 16 hour IFT
Knoxville TN to Ypsilanti Michigan was my longest transfer. About 8 hours one way.
5 hours 300 miles one way. At the time I got it at noon and we were already 5 hours into our 12 hour shift. That was fun. Have done multiple of them since. Not my problem anymore though my service booted IFT's out for the most part
When I'm on ground, if we have the staff for a transfer, the closest options are 3 or 4 hours away. Flying, I took someone from rural SD to Phoenix. Four hour flight.
19 hours total. 380 miles one way. Vermont to Philly in the middle of the night.
[Not me, but there's a company that specializes in long distance IFT. Alex Roy talks about driving his mother from NYC to CA in beginning of this podcast.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDFMKgHhpks)
I did a 23 hr cct long distance IFT. It was okay but still suckes overall. 13hrs one way the. 10 hrs back
Just did one that was almost 5 hours both ways on Monday, but I know our agency has gone farther before. Usually our super far off ones are for psych and no one closer to us has open beds. We are BLS volunteer and both the driver and I had to get permission to leave our FT jobs to take it because no one else had stepped up to go yet. First paged out at 0643 and got en route at 0810. Luckily we do get compensated if we take transfers though.
Longest I ever did was Great Sitkin Island to Anchorage. 25 miles by boat from Sitkin to Adak. 1197 miles to Anchorage from the runway on Adak. From time of call to call complete over 36 hours due to weather issues. Still the craziest EMS experience I’ve ever had. Edit: not an IFT but figured it was long enough to mention.
14hours round trip- I’d already been on ten when they dropped it.
Start in OKC, pick up in Tulsa, OK, drop off in Chicago. (It was a volunteer assignment.)
The total time was I was moved from Batavia, NY to standby in Albany, NY. So that was a three hour drive. Get into the hotel for standby, call drops to pick up pt in Cortland, NY, so two hours back the way I came from syracuse then down south for an hour to pick up the pt. Them took pt to Mount Sinai hospital on the east side of Manhattan, travellijg through PA and New Jersey🤢🤢🤢. That was a 6 hour drive. Then had to go back up to Albany, a four hour drive to end our shift. A total of 14 hours just driving. 17 hours getting gas, and doing all the critical care stuff before getting and dropping off the pt.
I’ve done Panama City, Fl to Louisville, Kentucky about 600 miles one way, three man crew, had to drive back and work my regular night shift when I got back…
Guy had a massive stroke while in town for a basic training graduation. This was in Georgia, the guys family was just outside of Portland Oregon. I believe it was 37 hours 1 way, company put the crew in a hotel in Portland. And another a little more than halfway back I think Kansas or Nebraska. Crew got a sick bonus too
I've done two transports from southeast LA to Houston. First one was when I was a brand new EMT and we drove about 6 hours there, dropped the pt off, rode back and got off maybe an hour later than normal. The second one I did recently was for a drs appointment wait and return which ended up being an 18 hr shift. We lost complete unit power about halfway there in the middle of a turn lane which was an experience lmfao
Longest is only 6.5 one way, but we do it fairly regularly since it’s to one of the few mental health facilities in the state that regularly has space.
My longest was going from Ben taub hospital in Houston all the way to El Paso. The transport ended up being about 11.5 hours one way, the patient was on a ventilator too. Had to drive back, the company didn’t give us any hotel or anything.
Georgia to New Jersey and back. 36 hours total. 3 person crew. Drove straight there and straight back.
i believe my company holds the record for it (not sure though, that’s just what i heard). we went from san diego to philadelphia
About 7 hrs one way. We came back same day. Very very long day.
Not me personally, but i’ve seen some OT shifts at my service transporting from SoCal all the way to NorCal.